AKALI DAL KHARA SAUDA BAR, an organization of Akali reformers working for the liberation of Sikh shrines from the control of conservative Udasi priests or mahants. The organization was originally called Khalsa Diwan Khara Sauda Bar set up in 1912 and comprised volunteers mostly from a cluster of villages

DECCAN KHALSA DIWAN, a philanthropic organization of the Sikhs, now nonexistent, was formed in Bombay on the eve of Indian Independence (August 1947), with Partap Singh as president and Hari Singh Shergill as general secretary. The DIwan`s main object was to provide help for the rehabilitation of persons uprooted from

KHALSA PRACHARAK VIDYALA, TARN TARAN, an institution established in 1906 by the Khalsa Diwan Majha. From its inception in 1904, the setting up of centres in the rural areas to conduct worship services and reform programmes among villagers had constituted a vital part of the DTwan`s mission. The new organizational

SINGH SABHA MOVEMENT, a reform movement among the Sikhs which assuming a critical turn in the seventies of the nineteenth century, became a vitally rejuvenating force at a time when Sikhism was fast losing its distinctive identity. Following closely upon the two successive movements, Nirankari and Namdhari, it was an

AMAR NATH, DIWAN (1822-1867), bakhshi or paymaster of the irregular forces of the Sikh army who distinguished himself also as a historian, was born in 1822 the son of Raja Dina Nath, finance minister of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. During the prime ministership of Hira Singh, Amar Nath was assigned

DEVI DAS, DIWAN (1767-1830), eldest son of Diwan Thakur Das Khatri of Peshawar, was, like his father, in the service of the Afghan rulers prior to joining the court of Maharaja Ranjit Singh. At the time of Shah Zaman`s last invasion of northern India (1798-99), the Maharaja, who had

KIRPA RAM, DIWAN (d. 1843), civil administrator, soldier and statesman in Sikh times, was the youngest son of Diwan Moti Ram. In 1819, Kirpa Ram was sent by Maharaja Ranjit Singh to Hazara to settle that turbulent country. The same year he was transferred to the Jalandhar Doab as governor

SRI GURU HITKARNI SINGH SABHA, a splinter group of the Khalsa Diwan, Lahore, came into existence during the early period of the Singh Sabha movement for reasons partly ideological and partly personal. The Khalsa Diwan, Lahore, itself had separated from its parent setup at Amritsar for similar reasons. Dissension marked

AMAR SINGH WASU (1884-1932), Akali activist and journalist, was born Ganga Ram at the village of Wasu, in Gujrat district, now in Pakistan, in 1884, the son of Ladha Mall and Lachhmi Devi. Under the influence of the Singh Sabha movement, the family went through the Sikh initiatory rites,

DINA NATH, DIWAN (1795-1857), civil administrator and counsellor of considerable influence at the Sikh court for well over three decades, was the son of a Kashmir! Pandit, Bakht Mall, who had migrated to Delhi during the oppressive rule of the Afghan governors of the valley. He was also closely

KISHAN KANVAR, DIWAN, son of Diwan Hakim Rai, served the Sikh rulers of Lahore in various capacities. He had been the playmate and associate of Prince Nau Nihal Singh who bestowed upon him the title of dlwdn and showed him several other favours. In 1837, Prince Nau Nihal Singh,

SUJAN SINGH SODHI (1870-1915), educationist and reformer, was born in 1870, the son of Sodhi Kishan Singh of Patiala. He took his intermediate examination at Mohindra College, Patiala, from where he went to Government College, Lahore, to receive his B.A. In 1980, he joined Mohindra College as professor of